English 
Vietnamese As businesses move to the cloud, ensuring security is essential for protecting sensitive data and maintaining trust. Cloud security involves policies and technologies designed to protect cloud services from cyber threats, unauthorised access, data breaches, and more.
To protect themselves from the ever-increasingly advanced cyberattacks, businesses have to up their game and adopt robust security strategies. This article discusses the 15 proven cloud security best practices to help upkeep organisations' healthy cloud environment while safeguarding their vital assets.
Read more: What is Cybersecurity? Everything You Need to Know
Contents
1. Adopt a zero trust security model
2. Enhance identity and access management
3. Encrypt data at rest and in transit
4. Apply multi-level security controls
5. Conduct security audits for the cloud on a regular basis
6. Utilise cloud security posture management
7. Monitor and respond to security incidents
8. Implement strict data loss prevention measures
9. Enable logging and continuous monitoring
10. Threat modelling and risk assessment
11. Ensure compliance with industry standards
12. Secure APIs and microservices
13. Use cloud workload protection (CWPP)
14. Leverage cloud-native security solutions
15. Automate security and patch management
Implementing effective cloud security best practices is essential to protecting your data, applications, and services in the cloud. With the evolution of cyber threats, it is no longer enough to emphasise maintaining a reactive security posture. A proactive, multi-layered security strategy becomes the norm.
Read more: What ‘Transformers’ Can Teach Us about Enterprise IT Security
Here, therefore, are 15 best practices for cloud security that will secure your cloud environment from threats and minimise the risks associated with adopting the cloud.
1. Adopt a Zero Trust Security Model
The Zero Trust model stipulates that default trust is withheld from both inside and outside the organisation; these must be verified to gain access to any resources in the cloud. Hence, that approach minimises risks of unauthorised access, continuous monitoring inference, and other best practices within it: cloud security.
Read more: Data Protection: A Security Key for Every Business
2. Enhance Identity and Access Management
Intensive implementation of identity and access management strategies should be undertaken. Enforce multi-factor authentication and role-based access control based on the least-privileged principal. Limited access to user-required resources can help reduce data breaches and internal threats.
3. Encrypt Data at Rest and in Transit
Encryption, one of the most effective ways to protect sensitive information, has made data stored in the cloud (data at rest) and transmitted across networks (data in transit) safe and available through strong algorithms, such as AES-256 and TLS 1.3. This guarantees the data's integrity, even if malicious actors intercept it at any point during transportation
Read more: How To Ensure Physical and Cyber Security When Working From Home
4. Apply Multi-level Security Controls
This stage includes setting up firewalls, intrusion detection systems, and other security tools to create a more solid shield of defence against possible cyber threats.
5. Conduct Security Audit for the Cloud on a Regular Basis
Cloud security audits expose vulnerabilities, misconfigurations, and compliance issues. Such audits also help identify security gaps as well as incorrect configuration and may not comply.
6. Utilise Cloud Security Posture Management
A Cloud Security Posture Management tool helps continuously monitor and assess cloud resources. The tools help detect any misconfigurations, non-compliances, and security risks to make sure that the cloud environment follows best practices and regulatory requirements at all times.
Read more: How to Implement a Continuous Governance, Risk, and Compliance Program
7. Monitor and Respond to Security Incidents
With automated solutions, processing of data with Security Information and Event Management systems, or Security Orchestration, Automation, and Response, organisations can discover and respond rapidly to threat incidents.
8. Implement Strict Data Loss Prevention (DLP) Measures
DLPs are security technologies used to prevent the unauthorised use, transfer, or destruction of sensitive information. DLP measures are important for cloud data protection as they keep the business' data safe and compliant with different protection legislation such as GDPR and HIPAA standards.
Read more: Step Up Your Data Game with These 9 Data Management Best Practices
9. Enable Logging and Continuous Monitoring
Log and continuous monitoring are expected to be installed in cloud environments and capture all activities in the cloud so that prompt intervention may stop security breaches.
10. Threat Modelling and Risk Assessment
Conducting threat modelling and risk assessment would increase the possibility of identifying early vulnerabilities in your environment. Common risks posed by unsecured APIs and misconfigurations could be addressed before they become high-end security issues.
11. Ensure Compliance with Industry Standards
Keeping to industry standards such as ISO/IEC 27001, GDPR, and HIPAA as a component of cloud security strategy. These are the legal and regulatory requirements to ensure that organisations do not compromise their strongholds in cloud security bases.
Read more: How to Implement a Continuous Governance, Risk, and Compliance Program
12. Secure APIs and Microservices
Modern cloud infrastructures can be compromised since they rely heavily on API and microservice environments. Therefore, ensuring solid authentication, password protection, and access-restricted APIs is vital to minimise the chances of breaches and unauthorised access.
13. Use Cloud Workload Protection (CWPP)
CWPP tools protect workloads that exist either in virtual machines, containers, or serverless environments. With this CWPP implementation, organisations are able to secure workloads from the inception in building and doing the deployment.
14. Leverage Cloud-native Security Solutions
Cloud-native security tools such as Cloud Access Security Brokers will complete the security lifecycle by integrating security into cloud operations. These will give visibility across cloud services, controls, and protections and ensure security is included in the design of your cloud architecture.
15. Automate Security and Patch Management
Automated patch management closes vulnerabilities faster to lessen possible exploit windows, and automated updates and patches help keep up-to-date systems in a secure cloud infrastructure.
Cloud security best practices have to be optimised to reduce threats and secure sensitive information. Encryption of data, identity and access management, and zero trust models are essential in creating security in your cloud environment.
Today, there are already a plethora of security solutions available for businesses regardless of size. Adopting best cloud security practices puts companies at an advantage, enabling them to guard their data, ensure compliance, and thus, remain ahead of the curve with respect to emerging threats.
Talk to TRGInternational for detailed solutions and professional advice on effective cloud security models according to you. Stay secure, stay compliant, and protect your cloud environment.
